According to Rand Water CEO Sipho Mosai, residents will not face a day zero scenario in the Rand Water-supplied areas.

“We’re pushing too much water into the system [to have a day zero]. Our infrastructure is pumping 5 000 million litres of water per day to 18 million people.”

Mosai’s statement came after a media briefing on October 22 at Rand Water’s head office in Johannesburg south about the ongoing level two water supply restrictions in Gauteng over the past few weeks.

Mosia underscored that most of the water consumed by the people of Gauteng comes from Lesotho and that South Africa does not have enough water resources within the country to meet water needs now or in the future.

“We need to keep in my mind that the resources and the water we use is the water that we catch by large in the mountain catchments of Lesotho, and comes down to South Africa as we do not have our own water. Almost every single drop of water that we pick comes from Lesotho as a result of the dams built.

“When we build dams, we displace people and destruct and destroy the environment. It is not ideal to do that, so let us rather use water sparingly than to build more dams in other countries.”

What’s the problem?

The two Rand Water purification plants in Vereeniging that experienced a contentious power failure, as well as the Eikenhof pump station, are to blame for the water cuts.

Mosai stated that plans are being developed to use more groundwater in the future to alleviate the supply crunch. Tripping in the system is becoming more common as consumption increases.

“Rand Water is exempt from load-shedding, but the quality of the electricity has been poor. Although it is not load-shedding, it affects the entity in terms of putting water into the system. There are other places along the water route that have power outages.”

Going forward

Mosai asserted that they predicted these restriction not only for this summer but for many months to come.

“This is a rolling five-year plan. Before deciding what needs to be upgraded, refurbished and operated, we consider the needs of our municipalities.

“Everything is dictated by demand. We don’t get up and plan. We are building plans, pipes and reservoirs. We are always repairing and operating. This is the basis for our capital budget.

“We spent nearly R3b per year on upgrading, refurbishing and maintaining our infrastructure. We already have a five-year plan in place and we estimate that we will spend close to R28b to upgrade our infrastructure.”